Capitola the Madcap

Capitola, an orphan discovered dressed as a boy and selling newspapers in New York, is taken to a Virginia estate as an heiress — and proceeds to fight a duel, outwit a highwayman and rescue everyone who tries to rescue her. Southworth was abandoned by her husband with two small children and no money, took up her pen, and became the most widely read American novelist of her century. Capitola is why.